Weve all heard the stories She used to be so thin, where did all that weight come from? Or He was so skinny and now he has a paunch! Very few are immune to weight gain in later life, no matter how thin they were as children and young adults and no we arent just discussing post-pregnancy weight gain here. This weight gain usually sets in a year into first jobs, right after college. In fact it is such a common phenomenon that it even comes with its own set of causes, symptoms, preventions and treatments. So heres looking at a common weight problem: Why do people gain weight in their late 20s? *Images courtesy: Thinkstock photos/ Getty Images

Weve all heard the stories She used to be so thin, where did all that weight come from? Or He was so skinny and now he has a paunch! Very few are immune to weight gain in later life, no matter how thin they were as children and young adults and no we arent just discussing post-pregnancy weight gain here. This weight gain usually sets in a year into first jobs, right after college. In fact it is such a common phenomenon that it even comes with its own set of causes, symptoms, preventions and treatments. So heres looking at a common weight problem: Why do people gain weight in their late 20s? *Images courtesy: Thinkstock photos/ Getty Images

#1 Reason: Erratic eating habits

Blame it on college. Did you step out of your parent’s home and straight into college with the intent to eat whatever, whenever, however? The stomach remembers. Above all, the mind creates habits.

As a result, you develop erratic eating habits. A chocolate ice cream shake for breakfast, a cupcake with a mayo sandwich for lunch, a bag of chips for tea, and a huge fried patty burger with fries on the side for dinner. What went with college life’s hectic and physically active schedule, suddenly doesn’t suit the sedentary lifestyle you walk into with your first job. Result: One or two years and the waistline begins to expand.

#2 Reason: Lack of knowledge about basic nutrition

While the younger generations are getting savvy about what to eat and what to avoid, this is a basic flaw in daily nutrition for most people. Not knowing which foods are good and bad creates a pool of misinformation and before you know it, you’re buying into that fad diet and spending hard cash on dodgy health products.

A basic reason behind this is that we move from our school to college to our first jobs with enough on our plates. Fitness is never a priority, especially if you aren’t overweight; since most people think that only being overweight is linked to poor health.

#3 Reason: Poor sleeping habits

This one’s the easiest to understand. All the late nights, parties, friends sleeping over, new bank balances…add up to one big fat reason to not waste time in bed. Late paper submissions, college studies, internship hours, first job anxieties are also part of the mix that causes poor sleeping habits.

How does sleep affect weight gain? Quite hard. Poor sleep lends to poor energy management, poor eating habits (late night snacking anyone?), poor stress management (we’ve all heard of what excess cortisol does to weight gain), and just bad lifestyle decisions. A tough habit to crack once we’re out of college-life, inadequate sleep plays a big role in weight gain in the late 20s.

#4 Reason: Lack of exercise or lack of the right kind of exercise

Unless you were a college jock, you would have had no reason to sweat it out with the right workouts through your late teens and early 20s. And unless you were an overweight young adult, you probably never considered exercise an important part of life. How many skinny people do you know who say things like “I don’t put on weight no matter what I eat!” Well, a few do, but a little later in the day.

Exercise isn’t as simple as walking, although walking can be a good way to start. Weight training is what effectively arrests any weight gain. And we aren’t just discussing weight gain here. To avoid low immunity, weakness, poor stamina and lack of energy, you need a good mix of cardio and resistance exercise. A lack of it will only cause weight gain; yes, in your late 20s.

#5 Reason: Simple science

Simply put, we are bound to gain weight as we age, IF we do not arrest this shift in body composition from fit to fat through exercise and healthy eating. The shift in body composition is a question of muscle loss and fat gain.

Let’s elaborate: As we grow older, we lose approximately one pound of muscle a year. Now, muscle burns energy more efficiently than fat. This means that by losing muscle, you’re essentially slowing down your metabolism. The more muscle you lose, the more weight you’ll put on with the same amount of food you’ve always eaten or the same amount of walking or cycling you’ve always done. So even if you’ve always eaten a 2000 calories a day diet, you’ll suddenly start putting on weight as your body is depleted of muscle through lack of the right physical exercise.

This isn’t even big muscle or gym-muscle. This is your natural musculature, your basic muscle pool; what you were born with and/or developed as an active child; what kept most of us within a good weight range right till our mid 20s. The minute a sedentary lifestyle sets in, this natural muscle begins to disappear. The inevitable result – weight gain in the late 20s that keeps escalating with every new decade.

#6 Reason: Addictions and binges

If there’s one single age group that suffers all temptations only to pick up some addictions or bingeing habits along the way, it’s the 20s. This is when many of us begin new relationships with desserts, alcohol, fried food, smoking, unhealthy partners, the list goes on.

Once these habits set in, they add to the increasing waistline and leave behind a path of destroyed childhood ideologies and carefully-constructed good habits. All the reasons listed before this one, are intricately and infinitely related and by the time you step into your 30s, you’ve moved from a size 6 to a size 10.

How can one stop weight gain in the late 20s and 30s?

The answer is simple – avoid all of the above. But if there is one solution that will allow you to enjoy this fun phase in life without gaining unhealthy weight that’s impossible to knock off later, then it is this: Exercise every day. Focus on a good mix of strength training and cardio, or new-age exercise mixes like High Intensity Interval Training, Crossfit, Military Bootcamps and several others that are designed to keep things interesting. Control the urge to pick up wrong temptations and avoid erratic lifestyle habit-building.

Between eating sensibly, arming yourself with the right health and nutrition information, and following good lifestyle habits, you will avoid the quarter age spread. What’s more, every new generation in this age bracket has one thing the earlier ones never had – it has the growing power of the information highways. Use it to get fitter as you grow older.